Google hits

Just for fun, a few days ago I tried searching Google for "genetic programming", and got a whopping half a million hits (533,000 as of this morning).

I could not resist trying out "field guide to genetic programming". Last time I had done it, a few months ago, we had something like 3,500 hits, which I thought was wonderful. So, nothing prepared me for this: 47,400 hits!!! (as of this morning) I.e., amazingly, 11.2% of all pages that mention GP also mention the book.

I suspect a lot of this is just due to the fact that a few big blogs somehow mentioned the book. One of the latest was a mention of the book in del.icio.us in relation to Roger Alsing's Evolution of Monna Lisa. (I'm not even sure that is genetic programming, but still a very cool application.)

Many thanks!

Riccardo

The Field Guide appears in ACM's Technews, reddit, numerous blogs

Some recent Field Guide sightings include a nice mention in ACM's Technews roundup for 14 Apr 2008 and a listing by some kind (and unknown, to us) folks on reddit (here and there).

Other recent bloggers to mention the book include

• Postmaster


• Andrea Valente on Biscotti Danesi


• Dan (the author of the Watchmaker Framework for EC)


• JJ Merelo (who says that we were on the del.icio.us hotlist on 12 Apr!)


• theKit (who suggests using GP to evolve 3D designs using RepRap, an Open Source Replicating Rapid Prototyping 3d printer)


• The Mad Scientist

Thanks to everyone for the links and support. To date (about 3 weeks since release) there have been 6873 downloads of the book! Questions and comments always welcome in the comments here, or over in our discussion group.

Field Guide sightings!

Several kind folks have put in a plug for the Field Guide on-line:

• Paul Myers on the prominent biology blog Pharyngula
• On Paulus De Blogkabouter
  
• Paul Wiegand on the Natural Computation and Coadaptive System Laboratory blog
• Pier Luca Lanzi on the Illinois GA Lab blog

Many thanks to all these folks for helping spread the word. Given our non-standard publishing and distribution model, we're particularly dependent on this sort of word of mouth support. Feel free to let us know if you've posted a plug for the book (in the comments or authors AT gp-field-guide DOT org DOT uk).

We're also looking for photos (like the one above from JJ Merelo) from the grand unveiling at EvoStar/EuroGP Wednesday in Naples, so please pass along those as well.